Virgin Galactic to Build Space Port in New Mexico 275
aapold writes "Virgin Galactic today announced plans to build a $225 million space port in southern New Mexico. Richard Branson will meet with governor Bill Richardson Wednesday to unveil the plans. Virgin Galactic is the company leveraging Spaceship One which, as reported by Slashdot, claimed the Ansari X prize for commercial space flight."
Exciting times (Score:5, Interesting)
I cant wait until my first moon-vacation
Good for Business? (Score:2, Interesting)
The commercial opportunities must far outweigh those potential problems.
Careful there.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Chump Change... (Score:3, Interesting)
They spent $800 million on a new launch center... IN 1962
Space == Money (Score:5, Interesting)
No kidding. Branson's investement is pretty much a no brainer. Estimates of price per ticket are at around $200,000 dollars a seat, times seven passengers is $1.4 million dollars in cash per flight.
Branson's in the airline business already. I'm not sure about the specifics of it, but I seriously doubt that there are any regular commercial flights out there that pull in $1.4 million dollars per trip. Even those that come close would be 747 type aircraft that probably cost as much to run as SpaceShipTwo will anyway. Can we get some figures here?
Now I would have said that Branson's best bet was to set up shop in some middle of nowhere location, to dodge regulations. But the fact that he's setting up shop inside the US shows that he's serious about doing things professionally. Nonetheless I expect customers will be expected to sign off in the event of an accident.
As to potential customers. Does anyone seriously suggest that Branson won't be able to find people willing to spend $200,000 on a trip into orbit. There are thousands of people who spend ten times that on a boat. I think he'll manage to fill a plane once a week at least.
Step 1: Wait for private group to develop initial technology.
Step 2: Buy group and its technology.
Step 3: Scale up development
Step 4: Charge suckers $200,000 per flight AND satisfy them
Step 3: PROFIT!!
Philippe Starck to design (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to see ..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine a platform at 160,000 feet, that uses a mass driver to toss cargo into low orbit .
High altitude ballons could carry the cargo to the platform 30 miles above the earth .
NASA has already done a small scale version of this :
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/0208
It would be a huge and complex task, but imagine a giant platform with many ballons in case one
fails, and a magnetic mass driver near the center to toss cargo into low orbit .
Power the mass driver would be difficult at that altitude with nearly zero oxygen .
Perhaps fuel cells, solar panels, or other non-combustion method .
I am curious how much a 30 mile headstart plus mag driver boost would help with fuel
cost to achieve Low Earth Orbit .
For the Anti Mass Driver crowd NASA has considered this before .
http://www.freeluna.com/spasnotes.htm [freeluna.com]
http://www.ssi.org/body_research.html#mass-driver
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/moondust.htm [aol.com]
Thanks !
Ex-MislTech
Re:Good for Business? (Score:3, Interesting)
Will it have (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Exciting times (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, by the time that we have enough industry that creating space pollution is a serious problem, we should have the technology to start thinking about junk removal. Right now, we have neither the ability to cause significant pollution, nor the capability to avoid it, so it's doubly moot.
Re:Hardly (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I am talking about still using rockets, but with the huge headstart provided by the flying platforms and starters they would be able offer much better payload ratios.